


Night Watch

by Delphi



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Comfort, Drama, Gen, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-05
Updated: 2011-08-05
Packaged: 2017-10-22 05:48:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/Delphi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Wystan's new lodgings, provided by the generosity of the Ordo Hereticus, have no locking mechanism." Late-night comfort and company, set post-series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Watch

Wystan's new lodgings, provided by the generosity of the Ordo Hereticus, have no locking mechanism. It's comforting, in a way. _We're all friends here,_ it says, _and when we decide your head is too frigged up to be saved, there won't be any unpleasant breaking down of doors before we put a bullet in your brain and set you on fire._

He doesn't sleep much. The headaches and the nosebleeds have eased, but there's a constant dull throbbing behind his eyes that makes him see a scattershot field of stars whenever he closes them. His bed faces the doorway (bad luck, his grandmother would have said), and he sits up most nights, reading when he can but mostly just staring out at the strip of light that steals in from the corridor in the narrow space under the door.

When he hears the sound of a finger tapping softly on the keypad outside, he holds his breath. The door hisses open. His tired eyes burn at the sudden glare, but he breathes out slowly when he sees the familiar, slight silhouette of a narrow frame topped with bed-messy hair.

"What do you want, kid?" he asks, as he always does.

"I had another bad dream," Zael says. The door slides shut behind him, leaving them both in the dark.

Wystan reaches for the bedside table and takes a lho-stick out of his case. He lights it, and in the faint glow he can just about make out the kid's sweat-sheened face and his worried eyes.

"What do you want me to do about it?"

There's the soft, clingy sound of bare feet crossing the floor. It's tile, the sort of surface you could easily hose down if you needed to. The bed sags. "I don't have bad dreams when I sleep with you."

He sighs, blowing out a mouthful of smoke. "That's not how it works any more."

Zael climbs in beside him anyhow. The bed is narrow, barely broad enough for Wystan alone, but the kid is still skin and bones no matter how much they feed him up, and he fits on somehow, pressing close and sharing the pillow. He's warm to the touch, and even after months in this place, with its cold, gleaming servitors and staff and its sterile surfaces, he smells like home somehow. Like the _Arethusa_ and the _Hinterlight_ before it, and the grinding gears of Ravenor's chair running hot, and the spice of Patience’s perfume, and the funk of Nayle's room. Like the grubby little sponge soaked it all up and keeps it wrapped around himself like a security blanket.

"It helps," Zael insists, his voice already drowsy.

"Shut up and go to sleep," he says and listens to the kid's quiet breathing, feeling it against his arm, soft and damp. It nearly lulls him into dozing, his eyelids growing heavy, but he smokes his lho by the quarter-puffs and warily tracks the shadows of the servitors as they pass outside the door. "I'll keep watch."


End file.
